Watching Edie by Camilla Way

“… they do remain a part of us, those people who have hurt us very deeply, or who we have hurt, never letting us go, not entirely.”

This is the tale of a fractured friendship between two young ladies from broken families. Edie is popular and beautiful, Heather is awkward and shy. To begin with they seem to be the best of friends, but one night, something terrible happens that tears them apart. Fast forward 17 or so years and Edie is alone, working as a waitress and struggling to cope with new motherhood. Luckily, Heather steps out of Edie’s past and into her present, just at the right time to keep Edie afloat. But, something’s not right, there’s a darkness in their past that can’t be overlooked in the future.

From the get go, I thought this wasn’t going to be my sort of book, I’m not really into thrillers where the past and present are skipped between and an intense love story is the main focus. I tend to find them samey and cringey – the love of an 18 year old still haunting lives at the age of 33 just seems to only happen in novels. But, this one intrigued me a little more than the others have done. At 50% I started getting a little more excited at what was going to happen next. In the end, I actually got quite into the book, reading it in 24 hours.

Our two main characters of the novel, Edie and Heather, have really terrible stories attached to them and we can sympathise with them both, but it’s difficult to pick a side…. Let’s just say that what you’re thinking throughout the book may be completely turned on its head once the twist has come out.

There were aspects of this book that were very predictable and for a while the only reason I wanted to continue reading was because I wanted to know the full details of what happened that night at the quarry, so it had me more interested than In a Dark, Dark Wood. But then BAM we’re smacked with the truth of that awful night and we have to take the book and its characters in a whole new light. The twist in the novel is so far from what I was expecting it to be, it’s absolutely brutal in comparison to other novels with the same kind of plot.

I ended up really enjoying this after being so skeptical to begin with and I think it’s an excellent fast paced, twisty-turny read but I know it won’t be for everybody, it features too many dark subjects for all psychological thriller lovers to enjoy.